Does inherent worth exist?

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4 questions for you:


1. Do you think it is more important that a successful business man reproduces than a guy with downs syndrome - or equally important?

2. Is a guy with downs syndrome worth as much as a successful business man?

3. Are you worth more than you skills, abilities, looks, talents, etc. etc.?

4. Does inherent worth exist?

1. Down's Syndrome isn't hereditary. The people that should reproduce, are the people who can afford it, don't have hereditary issues, and who don't live in areas that are hostile to children.

2. You're worth less if you're an @$$hole.

3. see above

4. I don't think so. It's about how you are as a person

I have said it once so I will say it a thousand times. Bloody existentialists.

The concept of "worth" is the value we feel a thing has. There is no inherent worth to anything. A thing only has worth if we desire it. So no, inherent worth does not exist.

I don't think that a successful person is any more valuable, as an individual, than someone who is not as able to contribute to society. But if it is society that is most important to you, you might assume the businessman's children would be better for society. But is that really the case? A businessman might do a poor job of raising children who end up a drain on society while someone with Downs syndrome might produce decent children. I guess it depends on what you place value on.

To the person with Downs syndrome and to those who care about her or him, their value is far greater than the businessman's. And to the businessman and his loved ones, he is more important. It may be assumed that a businessman might be more valuable to society, but some businessmen actually cause a great deal of damage to society. In that case, a person with Downs syndrome would be more valuable for not doing the damage.

As to whether I personally am worth more than my skills, abilities, copious good looks, and talents.... Again... Only to the people who give a damn about me. To anyone else, I have no value.

1. Most people shouldn't breed.

2. I'd have to know the business man and the person with down syndrome and even then others might disagree. Worth and value are subjective.

3. No one's really 'worth' anything. Not objectively.

4. Nope. Matter is only a tiny minority of what makes up the universe. An even tinier amount is biological matter on Earth (and maybe other planets like it). Of that biological matter which has existed on Earth over the last 3.7 bn years a minuscule amount has had the ability to appreciate the concept of worth. Even then these notions of worth are locked up inside about 1.5kg of fatty meat in the skull of an ape that barely just survived an extinction event in East Africa. Even things that are important to living organisms (like sunlight, water, nutrients etc) would only have an inherent worth if we objectively knew that there is some purpose for life, some important goal towards which living things struggled. It seems likely that this is not case.

I agree with Jagatai. Inherent worth doesn't exist. It is subjective- dependent on who is doing the valuing and what they are looking for. Jagatai gave some great examples of variations. Here are a couple of other examples.

To the inventor who wants to get his invention into the marketplace, the successful businessman is worth more.....as somebody to do business with. If that same inventor has a brother with Downs Syndrome, the man with Downs Syndrome is worth more as somebody to love and spend time with but he is unlikely to want his brother to be in charge of bringing the invention to market.

To the kidnapper, the successful businessman and the man with Downs Syndrome are both worth whatever money somebody will pay for their return.

To the Hollywood casting agent who needs to hire somebody to play a character with Downs Syndrome, somebody who actually has it is worth more than somebody who doesn't. The one who has the most value is somebody with Downs Syndrome plus acting experience.

And so on. It depends on who is doing the valuing and what they are looking for. The worth is not inherent.

Actually, DS is hereditary. Children with DS parents (generally mothers, men with DS have poor fertility) have an elevated chance of having DS, because in each bout of meiosis two of the four eggs resulting will get an extra chromosome 21. (However, DS eggs seem to get fertilized less often than expected.)

But to me, Down Syndrome is irrelevant to your worth as a person. I believe all human beings have worth.

I believe in inherent worth, and I believe that bad people often ignore the inherent worth that people have. However, I also believe that those bad people have inherent worth as well, and approve only such measures as are necessary to stop them from causing harm to others.

I can't make a logical argument for inherent worth, because it's not a logical idea. It's a foundational belief, on which I build my moral code. It's like the moral equivalent of the rule that parallel lines never meet in math.

Equally important, by several definitions.

1. They are both human; therefore they are equally important. That's an ethical thing as well as a logical one. Ranking humans by importance at all eventually leads to the idea that no one is important--which once again makes them all equal.

2. Economically, the businessman's contribution is obvious, but the DS guy's contribution is there, too. Think about it: The DS guy is a living symbol of the fact that we care for the weaker members of society. The simple presence of those weaker members says to everyone that society will provide for their weaknesses. This allows us to specialize. The businessman, specialized in his business, could not exist if it weren't for the fact that society supports the DS guy.

And let's not forget that a person with Down syndrome will contribute on his own, perhaps more than the businessman does. Let's say he goes out and leads a branch of People First, or becomes an activist--he's helped other people with intellectual disabilities. Or maybe he becomes an artist. Maybe he's socially gifted and he brightens the lives of everyone around him. Whatever. It depends on who he is, doesn't it? The businessman, on the other hand, might just make money--he might have a negative impact on those around him, if he's ruthless enough. One can't determine who has the better impact on the world without knowing them both.

Financially? Probably not, unless he inherited money. To society, yes.

My talents, looks, and abilities are irrelevant to my worth.

Yes. If anything in the universe has meaning at all, human worth exists. We are self-aware, capable of feeling, and much more complex than anything else we know of. If existence is a good thing and entropy is a bad thing, and humans defy entropy by simple existence, by being so complex, then yes, inherent worth exists.

But let's say it doesn't. If everyone is worthless, then everyone is worth the same amount: Zero. And once again, the DS guy and the businessman are on the same level.

If worth is value in dollar, humans created the concept of money, which has little value to me.

Come on people now, smile on your brother, every one get together and learn to love one and another right now.

Thank you for all the great and insightful answers.

It just occurred to me that when I enter the social scene, I lose my feeling of inherent worth because I get reduced to my skills, abilities, looks, etc.

When I am on my own I feel like I am worth more than that because noone can dominate me nor tell me what to do.



So I suppose "inherent worth" for me equals "being in charge". In social settings there is a battle about who should be in charge. In such a setting the businessman likely would win over the guy with downs syndrome, which would make him worth more (according to the previous definition) than the guy with downs syndrome.

But only as long as the guy with downs syndrome was forced to obey the orders of the business man. If the downs syndrome guy was completely independent of the other guy, he could just strike back at any offensive remark because he would have nothing to lose by doing so.


As soon as you are forced to obey the commands of others you lose your integrity and inherent worth (according to the previous definition).

In that scenario inherent worth only truly exists for those who are independent.

4. Does inherent worth exist?

Absolutely. Each person has inherent worth simply for existing as a human being, and as a spiritual being.

3. Are you worth more than you skills, abilities, looks, talents, etc. etc.?

Yes. Your worth is immeasurable, it is far beyond any of those things.

2. Is a guy with downs syndrome worth as much as a successful business man?

Yes.

1. Do you think it is more important that a successful business man reproduces than a guy with downs syndrome - or equally important?

Important to whom? To society? To those individuals? To me personally? I think a person should be sure they are able to care for a child before they have one. But that needs to be a personal decision. The successful businessman may have a lot of financial stability, but may not be cut out to be a father. The guy with downs syndrome might have a very limited income, but would be a wonderful father. Both have the right to pass on their genes.

1. Theoretically speaking the more physically and mentally perfect a person is, the more importance their reproduction is. Yet it's a purely theoretical statement made since ages past; when we were primitive beings we bred based on the best traits were considered desirable/perfect. The stronger someone was, the more important reproduction with them was.

2. I believe we're currently beyond the point where we can attribute worth. We should be beyond the point where the face, race, etc you were born with somehow elevates you beyond the worth of any other person.

3. I think this one's still very similar to 1, 2, but hard to answer. Theoretically we're all worth the same, then we get more worth for skills, abilities, etc. Otherwise mathematicians wouldn't be respected more then welfare-couch-potatoes.

4. It currently does. We still rate inherent things far higher then we even wish, it's mostly subconscious left over from being primitive beings. We're attracted to what we see as 'perfection'.

1. Do you think it is more important that a successful business man reproduces than a guy with downs syndrome - or equally important?
assuming both people can afford a child and have no (other) heriditary issues, they are equally allowed to have a child.
calling it important to reproduce is another question entirely, as there are nearly too many humans already, but that's not the point.
if asked which of these should be allowed: not enough information to decide

2. Is a guy with downs syndrome worth as much as a successful business man?
in what situation and valued how?
if you are talking in salary payed by a multinational, the businessman is 'worth' more, but if you are talking about a volunteer at a nursing home, perhaps the guy with downs is better to have. as with #1, not enough information

3. Are you worth more than you skills, abilities, looks, talents, etc. etc.?
this is a difficult question, but i'd say yes, a combination is more then the sum of its parts, be that a car, a phone or a human

4. Does inherent worth exist?
no, not in the least.
worth is earned and can be reduced just as easily

of course, i answered from my own perspective, society likely wont agree completely

By that definition, almost nobody has any inherent worth, since the police/military can use force to make all citizens obey commands. All employed people take orders, except for chief executives. Minors have to obey their parents. Other than heads of state and some CEOs, nobody has any inherent worth under your definition.

Double post.

I first encountered a memorable poem addressing this topic when I was about 8 or 9 years old. I was bored and finding ways to pass time, stuck in a Pan Am 747 thousands of miles from anywhere, high above the North Atlantic ocean, somewhere between New York and London.

I thought about it for a long time and came to the conclusion that it was substantially correct. I still believe this. All people have inherent worth because we value them. Nothing has a value outside that assigned to it by observers. I have a system of ethics and this idea is a key part of it. If you really don't believe this, then I feel sorry for you, that this aspect of the humanity of others is not apparent to you or that you do not exercise the faculties of perception and reason that would enable you to apprehend the inherent value of all people.